We hear people referred to as ‘natural born leaders’ but effective leadership, just like all interpersonal skills, can be learnt, practised and developed. This article will show you some of the top tips to help you pursue your leadership development.

What is leadership?

Leadership roles are not necessarily to do with seniority, but involve the ability to motivate others to believe in, follow and work towards a common goal. Effective leaders are emotionally intelligent and enable and empower their teams to do and be the best that they can by supporting them with strategies and by creating inspiring visions of the future. There may be many different types of business leaders, all of which having different leadership styles, but there are key trait theory ideas that are proven to be effective.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

“Leaders need to provide strategy and direction and to give employees the tools that enable them to gather information and insight from around the world. Leaders shouldn’t try to make every decision.”

Dolly Parton, actress and singer

“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.”

Vince Lombardi, American football coach, and NFL executive

“Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”

Checklist: 8 ways to develop your leadership skills

A great leader will top leadership skills. They will understand the importance of leadership skills and have a natural curiosity, a constant thirst for knowledge and the willingness and desire for self-improvement – as well, of course, excellent effective communication skills. By considering the list below, and you can develop leadership traits and learn to be even better managers and leaders.

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Who do you look up to as a successful leader and why? Who leads you with skills and attributes you admire and who can you turn to for advice or mentoring?

2. Listen

By active listening you can find out all the information about strategic thinking and projects and devise effective strategies to move forward and get feedback on how things are going. People will be more motivated if they feel they are listened to.

3. Keep learning

By keeping up to date with all the latest developments in your industry you’ll be well respected and will be in a better position to lead. Always keep your cover letter in top shape and always be job searching. Gain knowledge about leadership styles and instead of just learning, really think about how this applies to your situation and what changes you could make to improve. Personality development is an important skill for managers.

4. Treat people as individuals

As a leader and manager, instead of thinking of inspiring a team, inspire individuals and have enormous employee engagement. Become a human resource for your employees. What can you draw on in that person’s values that will help them see and work towards the vision?

5. Think positive

Having a positive attitude and being passionate about your work will make other employees feel that they want to be part of it.

6. Communicate effectivelyMaybe you’re a really good public speaker but you’re bad at replying to emails. Different people like to be communicated with in different ways so work on becoming proficient in all forms of communication.

7. Promote creativity

Make sure everyone you work with - from entry level workers to top leadership - knows that they can add value to any situation and new ideas are welcomed with open arms. See failures as opportunities to learn and grow from.

8. Reflect on success

When you’re so focused on future ambitions and leadership and management it’s easy to forget to look at how far you’ve come. Celebrate your successes and reward and recognise your team members. Change management tactics when necessary.

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Video: What it means to be a leader

by Capture Your Flag

Simon Sinek teaches leaders and organisations how to inspire people and develop leadership. In this video, he talks about understanding leadership and what it means to be a leader including how to articulate your vision and inspire others.

Managing a team effectively

The most effective teams will want to be led or managed by their leader, they won’t dread seeing them or fear to work for them or for receiving feedback from them.

5 ways to get the best out of your team

Good leaders are emotionally intelligent and have organisational success and the ability to adapt to circumstances to get the best out of everyone. You need to know how to develop relationship building with team members who may not be performing as well as others, and adapt your leadership skills to that person. Being prepared for things to change and having a plan will instil confidence in the team.

Lead by example – have the discipline to do the things that you say are important and ask of others.

Effective leaders know that delegation skills are key and know when to take things on yourself – getting this balance right is key. You can’t do everything yourself and need to trust and develop others but taking on some initiatives instead of just directing them will help you learn. You need to remember that, as a leader, developing your soft skills is key. You will need to have good communication skills to ensure that your team thrives.

Cultivating a culture of honesty and trust is one of the key management skills. Don’t talk behind other people’s backs and don’t tolerate others doing it. People managers aren’t well received. Problems should be dealt with and moved on from. Think about your management skills and leadership training, and how you act around your team – by treating them as people instead of your employees, they will then want to succeed in your business.

Ask for feedback and act on it. The importance of leadership is to celebrate you and your client successes, and work on your weaknesses.

Coaching and mentoring teams

Helping your team members to improve through strong leadership coaching or mentoring is an obvious way to show you’re invested in their development. Team building exercises are a great way to bring your employees closer together and work well, making work more enjoyable for everyone. This will give them more job satisfaction and a greater desire to stay working for the organisation. Of course, better-trained staff will also help you achieve your business goals too.

“My aim is to make my team members feel so confident in their roles that they don’t need me anymore.”

Sally Lidmore, Owner at Foundations Recruitment

Not only can it help to develop leadership, coaching and mentoring can help with:

Increased thinking skills engagement with projects

Achieving specific goals within career paths

Becoming more productive

Being more self-confident and self-reliant within effective leadership roles

Seeing things from a different perspective

Gaining personal awareness

And you’re never too experienced to have a mentor either personally or for your business. It’s highly recommended.

Crisis management

It’s easy to be a good leader when you have the skill required and when everything is going well but how leaders deal with crisis management situations can be the making or breaking of them – a true test of their talent management and skills. In business, they are one of the hardest things to deal with and also require the most leadership and critical thinking.

Would you be ready if one of these incidents were to occur at your business?

Your premises were affected by fire or flood.

You had a data security breach.

There was a sexual harassment claim made against a member of staff.

A key person in the business was hit by a bus.

Someone had a severe allergic reaction.

Dealing with unexpected and unpleasant situations isn’t the way we choose to improve leadership, but it’s often where we learn the most. It shows the value and importance of leadership alongside how every mentioned skill for leaders is essential.

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Have project planning, action planning, and risk assessments in place.

Train all staff with skills related to their tasks and encourage them to identify risks.

Define clear roles within every job description and strategies for dealing with incidents.

Communicate effectively and honestly - be human and use social media to update where relevant.

Invest in prevention and get insurance

Time management and productivity

When it comes to project management and productivity, leaders really must lead by example. If you find yourself taking on too much on or becoming overwhelmed with tasks, your business and the quality of your work will ultimately suffer.

Andy Cordina is the real estate owner of Bettie Confetti, a greetings card business. Before that, she used to work on her business part time whilst managing a marketing and sales team in her day-job. She’s shared some of her coping mechanisms and strategies for adjusting to life as your own boss.

1. Learn the seasons

“Knowing how your customers behave at various points in the year will be the difference between being level headed to losing your head entirely. Something as simple as having a wall chart to highlight monthly focus points can help you get all your ducks in a row. Or if you’re more of a digital person, just use your email calender – you’ll most likely have it open all day long so you can make sure you’re referring back to it as often as possible.”

2. Reach out for support

“Often when I’m feeling the pressure, I take five minutes to bolster a bit of support from other people going through the exact same thing. It’s always a comfort to get a few words of encouragement, even if it’s from total strangers.”

3. Plan and review

“I’m the type of person that gets an idea and just runs off with it. Often, with my closest business advisor (and spouse) grabbing me before I’ve fled too far off into the distance. And, even though I don’t like being told what to do, sometimes you need to be reeled in, before you let that idea take over your whole life. So planning and reviewing are really the only way to do this.”

4. Don’t overcommit

“Once you’ve learnt your seasons, you’ll know if you can spend three hours a week on something in the winter and up that time in the summer when you’re less busy. Be realistic – work usually takes longer than you think it will – so don’t overload yourself.”

5. Inhale, exhale, repeat

“I have an Apple Watch – I know, I’m so totally cool – and it has an app called Breathe. And every hour or so, it reminds me to take minute to just breathe. It also tells me when I’ve been sitting down for too long, so I get up and make a cup of tea.”

How to put in place an effective business strategy

A business strategy will define why you’re doing what you’re doing. It should form the basis of all business activities.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

To create your business strategy ask yourself the following four questions…

What problem are you solving?

What is your product or service?

Who is your target market?

What is your USP?

From these, you can create your story or your ‘why’. Whether you have a long established business or a startup, you’ll need a clear business strategy. The message should be meaningful but simple and easy to understand by all stakeholders. Don’t try to be everything to everybody – your business strategy should have a real focus. It should be constantly reinforced with communication and should inspire your team. Need some ideas for your business strategy? Read about the different startup methodologies.

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